The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Man gets prison for Timberlake crash
Seven Hills man gets 30 months for crash that injured 3
A Seven Hills man was sentenced Aug. 22 to 30 months in prison for driving drunk and crashing his vehicle in Timberlake, injuring his passenger and two other people.
Cody Goldean, 27, previously pleaded guilty in Lake County Common Pleas Court to aggravated vehicular assault, leaving the scene of an accident, OVI and failure to comply with an order or signal of a police officer.
Goldean, a father of four, apologized for causing the crash that injured his best friend, Michael Wagner, and an Eastlake couple.
Goldean said he has battled an addiction to alcohol for many years and has been sober for five months.
He was arrested Aug. 7, 2015, after Eastlake resident Stacey Voit, driving westbound on Lake Shore Boulevard, called 911 to report an aggressive and erratic driver around 4:30 a.m.
Voit said she began to turn right on Route 91 when Goldean tried to pass her, sideswiping her car and then crashing into a light pole — taking out five sections of fencing near Willo-Lake Church of the Nazarene.
Voit said she lost three teeth after hitting her mouth from the airbag deploying or on the steering wheel.
“I was smashed in the face!” she told Judge Richard L. Collins Jr. “There are three seconds I don’t remember. I lost consciousness. My teeth were fine (before the crash).”
Defense attorney Leo J. Talikka argued that medical records provided by the prosecutor prove her teeth were “in severe jeopardy of being lost” two years before the crash because of an infection.
Talikka and Goldean’s live-in girlfriend described the defendant as an extremely devoted father and hard worker.
Goldean was a supervisor for a local siding company who supported all of his children as well as his girlfriend’s 8-year-old child from a previous relationship.
Marilyn Wise, a chemical dependency counselor, said Goldean has been a client of hers since 2013.
“He is such a bright young man with so much potential,” Wise said. “His alcoholism is not who he is. He does not want to go back to alcohol. He was given alcohol as a boy. He was extremely abused by both parents.”
Collins said he would consider judicial release for Goldean with intensive treatment after serving one year.
The judge also suspended Goldean’s driver’s license for three years, and ordered him to pay fines and court costs.
In addition, Goldean was ordered to pay the couple more than $10,000 in medical expenses that were not covered by insurance.
Voit’s husband, Michael, was treated for lower back and a sprain to his right shoulder.
Goldean also must pay $3,265 to repair the fence.
According to Eastlake police, Goldean exited his 1996 GMC Sierra pickup truck through the driver’s side window and ran from the scene along the bike path. Three men from a nearby skatepark stopped and held him down until police were able to handcuff him.
Wagner, Goldean’s male passenger, was flown by medical helicopter to MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland with a collapsed lung and internal injuries.
While at the Eastlake jail, Goldean reportedly told police he had drank alcohol that day and did not believe that his passenger, who was a co-worker, was hurt. After Goldean refused to submit to a test to measure his alcohol level, he was booked into the Lake County Jail in Painesville.
Wagner did not attend the hearing because he has been in the Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Conneaut since November on a Geauga County assault case.
Goldean had been out of jail since Aug. 20 after posting 10 percent of a $10,000 bond.
He faced up to three years in prison.
“The defendant made a conscious choice to get behind the wheel while drinking,” Assistant County Prosecutor Jacqueline O’Donnell said.